Israel to Europe: Stop “Hysterical Nonsense” on Resettling Bedouin – Tovah Lazaroff
Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman last week called on Europe to stop its “flagrant interference” in Israel’s plans to resettle residents of the illegal Bedouin encampment of Khan al-Ahmar near Jerusalem. Lieberman wrote to European ambassadors on Oct. 2 that “Khan al-Ahmar is a cluster of makeshift shacks erected illegally” by members of the Abu-Dahuk clan of the Jahalin Bedouin tribe, housing 28 families.
“The compound is situated precariously close to the adjacent highway, presenting an imminent safety hazard to its residents….Your governments are condoning the continued exposure of these people and their children to serious health and safety hazards, forcing them to reside in a place without even minimal health and electric and fire-safety conditions.” Israel wants to provide these Bedouin families with “plots of land, provision of proper water and sewage infrastructures, telecommunications and safe electrical connectivity, and the construction of a new school.”
“The idea that moving a group of some 100 people [to an alternative site] within a five-km. radius will prevent a resolution” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict “is hysterical nonsense.” Israel’s High Court of Justice has ruled that it is legal to relocate the shantytown, as it has ruled on the evacuation of illegally built Jewish homes in the West Bank. “Thus, with all due respect, Israel’s fiercely independent and highly respected High Court needs no lectures on jurisprudence, with respect to international law or otherwise.” (Jerusalem Post)